1. Technical Field
The present invention concerns a solar powered portable fluid level monitoring system with an audio and visual alarm, as well as a remote notification system for those who cannot see or hear the audio and visual alarms.
The following description of the related art and the preferred embodiment relates the present invention to an oilfield application in the oil and gas industry. It will be appreciated, however, by those with ordinary skill in the art that the present invention may have application in other fields such as, for example, the waste management industry, the flood control industry, or any other industry concerned with monitoring fluid levels.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the oil and gas industry, hydraulic fracturing (known as “fracking” or “fracing”) has become a commonplace procedure to unlock and recover hydrocarbons and gas trapped within shale formations deep below the surface of the Earth. During fracing operations, large amounts of water, sand, and proprietary chemicals, known as frac fluid, are injected at the surface of a wellbore and flow into perforations created within the formation. Injecting the frac fluid creates fractures within the formation, which unlock the hydrocarbons and gas trapped therein. As part of the process, large amounts of used frac fluid are generated and subsequently recovered from the wellbore. The used frac fluid must be treated before it can be re-used or before it can be released back in to the environment.
Used frac fluid is often stored in one or more large, open holding tanks on the surface. These tanks may be located in the vicinity of the drilling rig or may be located a good distance away from the rig. Regardless of where the tanks are located, it is critical to monitor the amount of frac fluid to ensure that the tanks do not get overfilled and leak.
However, monitoring the level of frac fluid in a holding tank on a drill site is challenging. The surface operations are often noisy and require extreme attention to detail. With attention focused on the surface operations, monitoring frac fluid holding tanks often becomes an afterthought and operators are reminded of this important task only after a spill has already occurred.
Though systems for monitoring frac fluid levels exist, these systems tend to be cumbersome, difficult to install, and permanent in nature. For example, electrical lines may have to be run to the monitoring system at the tank and would have to be removed when the drill site closes. Installing these systems and removing them takes time and costs money. Additionally, current systems do not allow for remote notification when the monitoring system is located a distance from the holding tank and, if an alarm does sound, anyone can disable the alarm without accountability.